A looming sense of foreboding in America

10/14/2018

"Is America headed for
another Civil War?" Americans are wondering: Was James
Hodgkinson, who nearly murdered Republican House Majority Whip Steve
Scalise, a precursor of more like him to come?

In the past, such bad
actors have been a portent to wider destruction, as was the caning of
Republican Pennsylvania Senator Charles
Sumner on May 22, 1865, on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Sumner,
a strict abolitionist, was attacked by Democrat Representative Preston Brooks from
South Carolina after Sumner criticized slave holders. The brutal caning, that
nearly killed Sumner, is seen today as representative of the decline in political
civility that eventually led to the American Civil War.